2014: The Year in Protest

Across the U.S., people took to the streets demanding action on criminal justice, inequality, climate change, and more.

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Moral Mondays

It started in North Carolina last year as a one-day protest. African American community leaders opposed what they described as a retreat of voting rights enacted by a recently elected Republican-controlled state legislature. That first day, activists blocked the doors to the state capitol. It happened to be a Monday, and what started small quickly became a movement. Progressives across the country took up the mantle, organizing similar protests on Mondays to oppose a variety of rightist policies on voting rights, gun control, marriage equality, Medicare, and more. An estimated 10,000 people took part in the largest Moral Monday protest, in Raleigh, N.C., on July 29, 2013. Since then, hundreds have been arrested for civil disobedience at Moral Monday protests across the country.

(Photo: Al Drago/Getty Images)

“Science Is Not a Liberal Conspiracy”

In September, just ahead of a high-profile discussion of climate issues at the United Nations General Assembly, more than 400,000 people, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and celebrity activists such as Leonardo DiCaprio, marched through New York City to demand that world leaders take meaningful action to address climate change. According to organizers, it was the biggest climate change–related march in history.

(Photo: Cem Ozdel/Getty Images)

“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”

After white police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, on Aug. 10, citizens in Ferguson, Mo., took to the streets. Ferguson police responded with riot gear, armored vehicles, and assault rifles, creating a scene that looked like a military action. On Nov. 24, in a decision over which many legal experts expressed dismay, a local grand jury did not indict Wilson, and the demonstrations erupted anew, this time with some of the protestors committing violent and destructive acts. In the weeks that followed, organized protests across the country made “Hands up, Don’t Shoot”—a stance and statement some eyewitnesses said they’d seen Brown make in his last moments— a national slogan of protest.

(Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Walmart workers disrupted Black Friday shopping this year with demonstrations demanding better pay at 1,600 Walmart stores across the country—the biggest Black Friday protests ever. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court soon ruled that the mega-store owed employees $188 million for not paying them for breaks and overtime; workers’ rights advocates called it a major victory.

(Photo: Our Walmart/Flickr)

The Fight for $15

Along with Walmart employees, fast-food service workers also took to the streets to demand better pay. As part of the Fight for 15 campaign, a massive series of protests and one-day strikes was organized in December. Outside McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s restaurants in more than 160 cities, fast-food workers demanded a wage of $15 an hour.

(Photo: Michael Tercha/Getty Images)

“I Can’t Breathe”

Video footage of New York City police officers tackling an African American man and placing him in a choke hold—a manoeuver banned by the NYPD—for allegedly resisting arrest on a charge of selling of loose cigarettes was almost too much for some to watch. Just as troubling for many legal and medical experts was a second, less-viewed video, showing 43-year-old Eric Garner apparently unconscious, handcuffed, and lying on his stomach, in contravention of long-established standard emergency medical procedure, while the police officers stood by doing nothing.

The death of Garner, a father of six who worked as a horticulturist at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, was ruled a homicide; yet, as with the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, no officer was charged with a crime. That led to further massive protests against police abuse just a week after Ferguson erupted and gave birth to the slogan “I Can’t Breathe”—Garner’s last words.

The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Take Down the Mob

Almost 50 years ago, at the height of the Mafia’s reign, the organized crime group had nearly 5,000 members in the U.S. Now, after decades of innovative technology, advances in police work, and sweeping legislation, that number is believed to have dropped to around 1,500, said G. Robert Blakey, a law professor and organized crime expert.

“They [the Mafia] used to control the Teamsters, the hotel and restaurant workers, the longshoremen, and the laborers,” Blakey said. “The hold of the Cosa Nostra [Sicilian Mafia] is basically broken in all those unions.”

Blakey helped draft legislation for, and is an expert on, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the law that helped dismantle the mob and that is still used today to target organized crime groups. RICO states that the leader a of criminal syndicate can be tried for crimes he ordered other people to carry out, breaking down many of the legal barriers that often protect kingpins from prosecution.

Here are just a few of the other secret Serpicos who helped dismantle the mob in the United States. Many of these prosecutors, cops, and legislators have passed on, but the effects of their work remain.

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Armed with smartphones, social media platforms, and the ability to broadcast events around the world as they happened, those who took to the streets in 2014 themselves became one of the biggest stories of the year. Outraged over the shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., and the grand jury decision not to file criminal charges, people ignited demonstrations from the streets of Beverly Hills to the steps of Capitol Hill. Ferguson and other huge protests over police abuse, climate change, inequality, voting rights, and more have us calling 2014 the Year of the Barricades.

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